Rural and Regional Development in Americas

Level: Undergraduate, Graduate

Division: The New School for Public Engagement

School: Milano School of International Affairs, Management, and Urban Policy

Department: Milano General Curriculum

Course Number: NINT 5395

Course Format: Lecture

Location: NYC campus

Permission Required: No

Description:
Most of human history has been lived in rural areas. Though it has only been within the last few years that more than 50% of humans are located in urban settings, were an extraterrestrial to learn about us solely through mass media representation of our lives, it would probably think we live in patches of concrete occasionally disrupted by majestic natural settings devoid of humans but occupied by a variety of cute and/or dangerous animals. This course will work against the pervasive disregard of the rural and explore how our fates are still tied to how we address its social, economic and environmental conditions. The course will begin with a consideration of analytical themes and policy issues that are common across the Americas (rurality, youth and mass media, aging, agriculture in global political economy, urban bias in national development planning, tourism, etc). We will then move into a series of regional case studies in North, Central and South America (Appalachia, the Inter-Montane West, Southern Mexico, Colombia's coffee country, and others) through which we will explore the intersections of geography, culture, policy and political economy in the construction of rural lives and livelihoods. The semester will end by examining the place of the rural in hemispheric integration through the combined and contradictory processes of trade and migration. For their term papers students will build their own regional case studies through which they will explore course themes leading to policy recommendations on how to address rural and regional development problems.

Restrictions:

Level

Open to Graduate students.